Letters: Prince William should know that politics and the monarchy don’t mix
SIR – While I endorse the sentiments of Prince William (report, February 21), he should be reminded that the 1689 Bill of Rights – which set limits on the powers of the monarchy, and established the rights of Parliament and the people – mean that the monarchy must not interfere with political issues. Both the provision of cheap housing and a ceasefire in Gaza certainly are.
Dorian Wood
Castle Cary, Somerset
SIR – Prince William is absolutely correct to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, but this can only be achieved if Hamas lays down its weapons, releases all remaining hostages, recognises Israel’s right to exist and undertakes not to launch any future terrorist attacks.
Trevor Joyce
Canterbury, Kent
SIR – I would willingly support a ceasefire, but it must be conditional on the safe return of all Israeli hostages. We hear much about the horrors on the ground in Gaza, but almost nothing about the condition of those kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. Why should Israel stop fighting when its citizens are held hostage?
John Seager Green
Winchester, Hampshire
SIR – It is dangerous for Prince William to speak out about the conflict in Gaza when so many British citizens apparently do not accept Israel’s right to exist, let alone defend itself.
D S A Murray
Dorking, Surrey
SIR – I now expect Prince William to speak up on all the just and unjust conflicts in the world. Not to do so will be seen as inconsistent and selective. He has thus set a dangerous precedent.
Ian Fraser
Prestbury, Cheshire
SIR – By speaking out on the situation in Gaza, the naive and ill-advised Prince of Wales has wreaked more damage on our constitutional monarchy than his foolish brother could ever do. A period of silence from him would now be judicious.
Hilda Ford
Corsham, Wiltshire
SIR – While almost all share Prince William’s humanitarian inclinations, fewer remember the Second World War and the fact that, to finish it, the Allies had to eradicate the Nazis.
The terrorist tentacle of Hamas must be defeated if Israel is to feel confident of its safety. A war has to reach a conclusion; it cannot be a compromise that leaves the opening for future conflict. Unless Hamas fundamentally changes its ideology, to try to end the conflict without its eradication will leave a risk of further violence and destruction, which, in all probability, will spread to Western countries as Islamic activists migrate.
Peter Williman
Chatteris, Cambridgeshire
Martha’s Rule
SIR – I’m delighted by the introduction of Martha’s Rule (report, February 21), which will force doctors to take note of parents’ instincts about how their children are faring in hospital.
Had my daughter, who is a medic, not sent me to A&E late one night, after diagnosing me by phone when I had a blood-sugar spike, and I could have died. Instead, I had a c-reactive protein blood test and was immediately put on a high-dose antibiotic drip.
My wish is that medics would react to information they receive with greater thought. A blood-sugar spike is usually “pre-diabetes”. But not always.
My notoriously fit wife was a walker, with a good body-mass index. A spike in her blood sugar should have prompted investigation for bowel or pancreatic cancer. But medical practices often presume a patient to be pre-diabetic without review.
My wife died 17 months after the blood-sugar test, and four months after we realised something else was wrong.
Well done to those who have pushed for Martha’s Rule. Now let’s seek similar improvements in reviews of blood-sugar spikes – especially when families have concerns. Let’s cut deaths from sepsis, and bowel and pancreatic cancers, by getting often-brilliant medics to look and listen.
Jeremy Houdret
Farnham Royal, Buckinghamshire
Scrapping stamp duty
SIR – I agree with Lord Frost (Comment, February 20) that the Government interferes far too much with private-property ownership. He mentions the Renters Reform Bill, but the more insidious interference comes in the form of stamp duty.
For example, my wife and I are retired empty-nesters. We’d like to move to a smaller house in the same area that would be easier to maintain and more appropriate to our needs. But the Government insists on issuing us a penalty of £25,000 if we do, so we will stay put. We can take a hint.
You have to be pretty desperate to move house in the United Kingdom, luckily we are not. For us, a move is discretionary. Accordingly we will not be employing solicitors, surveyors or estate agents, won’t be buying new carpets or appliances, and won’t be hiring removal firms or decorators. I estimate that the total VAT take on our proposed move would have been £7,000. There would also have been extra income and corporation tax payable by our suppliers. The Treasury could easily be a net loser.
How many others are in this position? Is it possible that scrapping stamp duty on main residences would release a tidal wave of discretionary spending, and not cost the Government very much at all? If so, the Conservatives are missing a golden opportunity to turn their fortunes around before the next election.
D F Burke
Farnham, Surrey
For bloater, for worse
SIR – Rosemary J Wells’s letter (February 20) about Shippam’s paste reminded me of being a newlywed 60 years ago. We were strapped for cash, so my husband did evening lectures at a technical college to supplement our income. The college was on the other side of London, so he’d get home very late, then bring smelly Shippam’s bloater-paste sandwiches to bed.
Nowadays that action might be cited in a divorce court as evidence of cruelty, but in those more tolerant times, give and take – on both sides – was the norm. We are still together, and thankfully the awful-smelling paste is no longer available.
Joan Manning
Barton on Sea, Hampshire
A fund for churches
SIR – Even if Britain is a far more irreligious society today, people can still be persuaded that churches are heritage assets important to all parts of society (Letters, February 19).
I lived and worked for many years in Austria, whose Alpine fields are replete with splendid churches. They are funded by general taxation. Britons are already very heavily taxed, so it would be inappropriate to impose yet more deductions from income, but there are other sources of money. I propose a “Tithe Act” by which 10 per cent of National Lottery winnings are automatically placed into a fund for church buildings. Any unspent money can support the churches’ pastoral care programmes.
Whereas other forms of gambling, such as cards or horseracing, can claim that human skill has some role in their outcomes, there is zero strategy to the lottery. Results are purely random, so a lottery win can genuinely be said to be an act of God. Accordingly, God needs to get His share.
The National Lottery paid out more than £4 billion in prizes in 2023 alone. The measure I am proposing would raise ample money for the maintenance of churches, support livelihoods in the traditional crafts, arts and industries associated with them, and guarantee free access.
Robert Frazer
Salford, Lancashire
People’s plinth
SIR – The Mayor of London is to put the occupancy of Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth to a public vote (report, February 20). Presumably he will pay as much attention to the result as he did to that of the consultation he held on Ulez expansion.
Malcolm Emmerson
Barnet, Hertfordshire
SIR – An empty plinth looks to the future, so filling the space now would preempt a subject to come. Besides, it is arrogant and sad to believe that we have reached the culmination of candidates worthy of commemoration.
Let’s leave it empty.
John Spencer-Silver
London SW11
The phone age
SIR – When I turned 65, my five-year-old grandson told me that as I was now very, very old, I should always carry a mobile with me (Letters, February 21) in case I fell over and couldn’t get up on my own.
Tom Stubbs
Surbiton, Surrey
The decline and fall of the highbrow politician
SIR – Tim Stanley (“We are too stupid to see the Dark Ages are back”, Comment, February 19) contrasts Harold Macmillan reading Aeschylus with Rishi Sunak’s preference for Taylor Swift, and laments the low cultural standards prevalent today.
Since the advent of mass television, however, politicians have often pandered to what they perceive to be the tastes of the general population. Gordon Brown, for instance, professed to like Arctic Monkeys. Further back, Harold Wilson presented himself as a pipe and beer man (though in reality he disliked both, preferring cigars and brandy). Is anyone fooled? Clearly many are, otherwise politicians would surely change their tactics.
Ann Keith
Cambridge
Ignorance underpins Labour’s hunting policy
SIR – It saddened me that Steve Reed, the shadow environment secretary, appeared to be so poorly briefed that he confused drag hunting with trail hunting when he spoke of loopholes in the Hunting Act (report, February 20).
Might I refer him and his advisers to a very good article produced by the League Against Cruel Sports (easily found online), which explains the distinctions between the two? Indeed, the league is an advocate of drag hunting as a replacement for fox and trail hunting, and the article makes clear the lengths to which drag hunts go to prevent either wildlife or domestic animals, such as cats, coming to any harm. The league states that drag hunting is “not to be confused with trail hunting, which is a very different thing”.
I hope the Labour Party will consider this before it makes the mistake of banning drag hunting through ignorance.
Mary Hudson
Langholm, Dumfriesshire
SIR – I invite Steve Reed to do two things. First, provide hard evidence to support his notion that rural communities want a complete ban on hunting with hounds.
Secondly, if that is provided, give his assurance that he will personally organise and oversee the euthanasia of the hounds – and probably many of the horses – in hunting yards.
This is the reality of Labour’s plan. Hounds are not pets; they cannot be homed. There is a clue in the description of a horse as a hunter. If Mr Reed doesn’t have the stomach for this, perhaps he should reconsider.
Tim Wright
Rampisham, Dorset
SIR – Without getting involved in whether it is better or worse for foxes, for me the problem with fox hunting is how distasteful it is for people to want to kill things for fun. It has little to do with vermin control.
Robert Pugh
Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire
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